The address registration and resolution protocol of the present state of the art developed by the industrial standard forum (Optical Interworking Forum) assumes the presence of an in-band or in-fiber Optical User-Network Interface (O-UNI) signaling configuration. In this configuration, each signaling channel is physically associated with an optical data link or channel. Additionally, a known type of address registration request contains only a client-layer address to be registered on a corresponding optical network point of attachment. The point of attachment is determined from the signaling channel to data link or data channel association.
Although the above-described approach may appear simple, even if the necessary signaling configuration is present, the approach is rigid, costly and incapable of handling client-layer addresses assigned to channels or sub-channels. Furthermore, many photonic switches and optical add-drop multiplexers do not have in-band or in-fiber signaling capability. Therefore, the address registration information contained in the current protocols is not sufficient to establish the desired address association. Consequently, the current solutions do not work in third-party signaling O-UNI service invocation configurations. The cost to adopt in-band and in-fiber signaling capability in an Optical Network Element (ONE) and client devices can be extremely high. Even with in-band or in-fiber signaling, the current address registration protocol can at most allow a client-layer address to be assigned to a specific channel but not a sub-channel.
In view of the foregoing, it would be desirable to provide a technique for address registration that overcomes the above-described inadequacies and shortcomings. More particularly, it would be desirable to provide a technique for address registration in an efficient and cost effective manner.